


Fort Asshole

by rebeccastceir



Series: An End. A Beginning.  - MOOD BOARD [16]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Bets & Wagers, Friendship, Jesse McCree is a Little Shit, M/M, Play Fighting, Scion Hanzo Shimada, angry Noodle Dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 10:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27849590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebeccastceir/pseuds/rebeccastceir
Summary: For many of the team, joining Overwatch was a step up, into a larger, more global stage.Lucio, Hana, and even Zenyatta had faced enemies in their cities, their countries.The older team members like Reinhardt, Ana, and Torbjorn - even Morrison - had worked for Overwatch in the past, but on short, mostly temporary missions.But Hanzo?Hanzo had run an empire.He was a lion in a room full of kittens.__________Jesse has to find a way to help Overwatch's newest let off steam before he breaks someone
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada, McHanzo
Series: An End. A Beginning.  - MOOD BOARD [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2002075
Comments: 19
Kudos: 183





	Fort Asshole

Jesse hated to admit it.

Didn’t _want to_ , for Genji’s sake.

But there it was. Impossible to ignore:

Hanzo was an _asshole_.

Occasionally the mood would strike him, and he’d walk around like a cat, all day, just interfering with people’s plans, making rude comments, and generally being a mood ruiner.

It took Jesse a _helluva_ long time to figure out that the cat metaphor wasn’t entirely coincidental: Hanzo’s spirit dragons had often struck him as having very cat-like qualities (as well as ferret-y ones), and Jesse had seen Hanzo’s emotional state bleed over into their behavior. It finally struck him that their moods and behavior might also bleed over into Hanzo - after all, they weren’t, entirely, _one_ being, and yet neither were they exactly _three_.

After about the eighth time Hanzo ruined the younguns’ video game party with sardonic bad humor, Jesse realized the cat metaphor went another way as well:

For many of the team, joining Overwatch was a step _up_ , into a larger, more global stage.

Lucio, Hana, and even Zenyatta had faced enemies in their cities, their countries.

The older team members like Reinhardt, Ana, and Torbjorn - even Morrison - had worked for Overwatch in the past, but on short, mostly temporary missions, and more recently had been collected in from even smaller, more personal battlefields.

But Hanzo?

Hanzo had run an _empire_.

Hanzo was a lion in a room full of kittens. He always, _always_ had to watch where he stepped lest he hurt someone, had to muffle his roar lest he scare them.

Jesse knocked on his door.

“You’re doin’ it again.”

“What?” Hanzo scowled in confusion.

“Retreatin’ to Fort Asshole,” Jesse said.

The dragons looked up from their bad-humored mauling of Hanzo’s stuff, and hissed at him.

Hanzo’s lips curled in equal offense. It’d be cute if he hadn’t given the dragons enough form to cause physical damage, and made them the size of wolves.

Jesse had no plans on getting mauled today. At least, not by _them_.

“Fort Asshole,” Jesse explained. “ ‘S where ya tend to go when yer bein’ mean to someone, and ya know it, and ya ain’t got it in ya to ‘pologize, cuz y’ain’t sorry, but ya feel like ya _oughtta_ be.”

All three dragons continued to stare at him, lips curled and teeth bared.

“You bored?” Jesse asked. “That what this is about?”

The dragons paced towards him like cats, every move smooth as silk, deliberate, tails not quite yet lashing, but held at the ready.

Hanzo’s chin jutted up, eyes narrowed. “If I say yes?”

Jesse waved him out into the hall. “Y’come work it out on me.”

Hanzo’s eyes narrowed even further.

The spirit dragons bracketed him like lions, tails beginning to flick.

“What do you _mean_ ,” Hanzo grit, “work it out on you?”

“I _mean_ ,” Jesse said, “ya come find me and we talk about it. Or we go pound each other on the mat. Or we go out to the shooting range. Or we go into town and find somethin’ to do. Or we go up on the roof and get shit-faced. Or, god forbid, ya find yerself a _hobby_. But ya _don’t_ take it out on the kids. Y’got it?”

Hanzo’s jaw worked, but he finally gave Jesse a curt nod.

“Good.”

Jesse’s hat and belt went missing the next day. He found Hanzo beating the stuffing out of a heavy bag in the gym - said bag decked out in Jesse’s hat and belt. It didn’t take much to get the symbolism _there_. Jesse watched him for a while, frowning, arms folded across his chest, as Hanzo flicked a series of punches at Gym-bag Jesse’s “face,” following it up with a karate kick below the belt.

“Would it make ya feel better to take it out on the real thing?” Jesse drawled, when Hanzo stopped for a break.

Hanzo flicked him a cautious look. It hadn’t taken anyone - least of all Hanzo - very long to figure out that Jesse was de facto team leader. “You are not a dummy,” was all he said, bending down to get his water bottle.

There was a strange sort of backward compliment in there that Jesse was going to analyze later. But in the meantime: “What I _meant_ was, would it help if someone fought back?”

Hanzo looked him over carefully, mouth still on the water bottle, as he considered his next words. When he finally put the bottle down he looked amused. “Are you offering to _spar_ with me?” he asked, head cocked.

“I am,” Jesse nodded.

Hanzo’s amusement deepened. “And you think you will _win_?”

“Not necessarily,” Jess shrugged.

Hanzo’s head cocked a little more, his dark eyes sharpening. He reminded Jesse of the way a cat watched something new, uncertain if it was friend, foe, or food. “You are a gunslinger,” he mused aloud, as much to himself as to Jesse. “What do you know of hand-to-hand combat?”

Jesse shrugged. “Invite me to spar, we’ll find out.”

It turned out the answer was “quite a lot.”

Jesse may have been _born_ with Peacekeeper in his hand - at least, that’s what he liked to tell people - but he’d been _trained_ under Gabriel “Grim Reaper” Reyes, the most dangerous man in Blackwatch, who was second only to Jack-fucking-Morrison - and only by one of Jack’s very fine blonde hairs, and only on a _very_ bad day. Jesse may not have had a supersoldier’s strength and endurance, but he’d had very nearly _all_ of their training, which he’d somehow married to his Deadlock cocky ruthlessness.

The result:

Jesse street-brawled like a bastard, his every move dirty, unexpected, and _effective._

Hanzo’d had easier workouts sparring _blindfolded_. He found himself _laughing_ as Jesse threw punches and kicks, dodging blows. Jesse was by no means _graceful_ , though Hanzo put off analyzing his fighting style for later, he couldn’t afford to get distracted right now - but his stockier frame was deceptively quick, and he almost never broadcast a move before he made it. What few times he did, Hanzo learned quickly, were feints. Jesse actually _drove_ him around the mat - Hanzo found himself put on the defensive much more quickly than he’d anticipated, and then baited into offensive strikes that were really just excuses to take swipes at his head and groin.

And forget ‘no hitting below the belt’ - Jesse had apparently never heard of that rule, and if he had, he’d decided to personally make it obsolete. Hanzo found himself making more awkward swipes to protect his groin than he’d ever had to make his entire ten years on his own. Jesse had decided that ‘honor in battle’ was a contradiction in terms - his only goal was to _win_. And he was willing to make whatever moves necessary to do so.

“Fifty credits on the samurai!” Reinhardt boomed, laughing.

“He’s a _ninja_ ,” Lena corrected. “And you’re crazy. Fifty on my buddy Jesse. Genji?”

Genji shook his head. “Gods, it’s tough,” he admitted. He’d trained alongside Hanzo for two decades. But then he’d trained alongside Jesse, as well. And he’d taught Jesse some of his dirtiest tricks. But then again, gods alone knew what Hanzo’d been up to for ten years… “Ten says they call it a draw.”

The rest of the team quickly gathered in the common room to watch the fight, Athena feeding security footage to the big holo screen and acting as bookie.

The fight ended with Hanzo face-down on the mat, one arm twisted painfully behind him, pinched in Jesse’s metal prosthetic, and Jesse’s foot in his spine.

Genji paid up without complaint, but privately considered it a win for Hanzo - he hadn’t seen his brother actually _laugh_ like that in decades.

The next time Hanzo felt himself coiling like a tiger, headed for Fort Asshole - gods and ancestors, why had that name stuck? - he made it a point to pivot mid-stride and take a detour to Jesse’s room instead.

“I feel like hitting something,” he grinned ferally, when Jesse answered.

Jesse raised an eyebrow. “Think yer gonna win round two?”

Hanzo shrugged, grin widening, teeth sharp. Jesse could almost see the blue dragons’ tails twitching. “Invite me to spar, we’ll find out.”


End file.
